Yup, it's another post about movies...

Yup, I've been a cinema whore lately. Saw 3 new movies, but the first is so bad that I really don't want to waste a lot of time talking about it. It was Dragon Wars, a Korean movie about dragons and legends and stuff. I know what you're thinking, how can a movie about dragons (I'm a dragon fan) with some pretty good CGI and special effects be that bad? Well, because it's just so fucking ridiculous!

The plot is a joke. It's about some girl with the power to turn a celestial serpent into a dragon that gets pursued by an evil snake that wants to turn itself into a dragon. Then the girl, along with her lover, commit suicide and they both reincarnate in modern-time LA. Wait, why the fuck would two 16th century Koreans reincarnate as Americans? Satan knows why...

Anyway, the evil serpent is back and starts to run after them, destroying everything in it's path, and then an army of reptile beasts and men comes in it's aid. Wait, where the fuck did they came from and why would men help a big ass evil snake? And, most importantly, where the fuck are the dragons??? Besides some flying beasts that resemble western-like dragons and a Korean dragon at the end, all we see is big snakes, some sort of dinosaurs and giant slug-like reptiles with mounted rocket-launchers...yup, they already had those in 16th century Korea...

Oh, fuck... This movie is so messed up... Really, has good as the CGI and special effects may be (and they are, the movie had a budget of $75 million and it shows), you just can't connect with the characters, or the setting, or anything, and when that happens you simply stop caring. The beasts themselves don't have anything charismatic about them and overall this is such a mess that you should do yourself a favour and avoid this movie like you would avoid a real dragon...which the movie lacks, for some reason...

By the way, the scene in the poster never happens. There's indeed a scene with the couple on the top of that building with the snake on the right, but the snake on the left just appears in the end of the movie. Gosh, I seriously need to watch Reign of Fire again to purge myself...


Next comes Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of fleet street. Thank god, a good movie at last! This was a great surprise, since I usually couldn't care less about musicals. This movie is different, though. The dark setting, the main character and the fact that there's enough blood to make a slasher movie, all helped to catch my attention.

Based on the musical of the same name, it follows the return of an old barber to 18th century London, after being falsely arrested and sentenced to a life of hard labour. Now is life is pretty much ruined, since is wife is dead and his daughter was taken by the corrupt judge that sentenced him, so he needs to find a new hobby. What did he chose? Cutting the throat of every evil man in the neighbourhood, that's what!

Of course there's more to it than the gore scenes of sliced throats. In fact that just happens during the second-half, with the first being filled with amazingly performed musical scores by all the actors and an interesting depiction of 18th century London, so if you're just looking for some gratuitous violence you'll probably be disappointed.

This movie is really a piece of art that should be seen by everyone, so even if you're not a big fan of musicals, give it a try (as long as all the blood doesn't bother you).


Finally comes The Kingdom, a pretty interesting film about a team of FBI agents sent to Saudi Arabia to investigate a terrorist attack. Now, I know what you're thinking, another movie about American heroes annihilating evil middle-eastern terrorists. Well, rest assured, that's not the case, because this movie actually tries to show us the "other side", the efforts of the Saudi State Police soldiers to stop the terrorist threat. Not only that, there are scenes that show us a little of their way of living, their costumes and their beliefs.

It's also interesting to see the interaction between both sides, evolving from mistrust to a deep friendship between the leaders of both teams. Of course, we also couldn't live without some pretty good action sequences, and near the end of the film there are a lot of action packed scenes, including a car chase on the streets of Riyadh and lots of bullets (and explosives) flying around.

One last thing I really liked is the realism of the dialogue. All the characters speak like in real life, without one-liners, without deep speeches. There's a lot of casual talk and even some funny scenes due to the Saudi Arabians inability to perfectly speak and comprehend English, leading to some misunderstanding between the two sides, just like what would probably happen in real life. It may seem insignificant, but it's little things like this that make a good movie great.

I really don't know what to say more, so you'll just have to trust me, this is another good movie that deserves to be seen.

Until next time! (there's a chance I'm going to see Cloverfield next week with a couple of friends)